Fantastic Four #1: A Promising but Flawed Start

Another round of reboots and relaunches and we find ourselves with another first issue of Fantastic Four, this time written by Starman and Detective Comics veteran James Robinson with art by Star Trek and Witchblade alum Leonard Kirk. Following the well-regarded run by Jonathan Hickman and the mixed bag that was the (mostly) Matt Fraction-helmed run overshadowed by its sister series FF, how does this hold up? Pretty well actually. Billed as "The Fall of the Fantastic Four," Robinson seems to be taking this story down the path of deconstructing its protagonists through extreme hardship. A writer of extreme creative highs and unfortunate lows, it was with some trepidation that I looked forward to reading this comic featuring my favorite superhero team. Robinson's relative unfamiliarity with the team in a professional sense only added to the sense of uncertainty that I felt when anticipating this book's release.

On the other hand, artist Leonard Kirk has worked in the Marvel Universe for some time now and has penciled at least a couple of issues of Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four. Art that he produced featuring the team, including preview material for this run, was floating around the internet and gave a favorable impression of his abilities, particularly with respect to Marvel's First Family. This brings us to the book itself. So, SPOILERS… The Good: It seems that I largely needn't have worried about Robinson's treatment of the FF. Aside from a few arguable hiccups in capturing the unique voices of the characters, the personality of each comes across loud and clear. In particular, his writing of Ben Grimm, The Thing, is some of the best I've read in some time. A familiar mix of dialect, self-deprecating humor, and the occasional shout of "Clobberin' Time," Robinson pretty much has it down. I was especially gratified to see him calling Fin Fang Foom something mildly amusing like "Scaly," instead of the head-scratching sobriquet "Shiny Shorts" he was saddled with applying to Namor in Avengers vs. X-Men: VS. The best example of Robinson's understanding of Grimm's character as well as his dialogue is in what has to be the best page of the issue, his meeting with Alicia Masters. As a fan of the Fantastic Four and Ben Grimm in particular, his relationship with Alicia is something that I didn't feel was truly dealt with in an effective manner following the Heroes Reborn event. Going back even further, I might suggest that since the "Alicia" that Johnny Storm married turned out to be the Skrull woman Lyja (yes, I know how weird that sounds), it seemed like writers either didn't want or didn't know how to revisit Ben and Alicia's romance. Seeing this thread picked up again in such a quiet and moving manner was extremely pleasing to a longtime reader.

As for the plot, there isn't really much of it here as this issue serves largely as prologue. That being said, we are treated to the James Bond-esque cold opener of the Fantastic Four versus Fin Fang Foom. This is handled very well as it allows each member of the team to display his/her powers and establish their character. Reed Richards, as always, is on hand with some science-y doodad, his three-dollar words, and his stretching ability; Susan Richards (née Storm) is the extremely powerful support player with invisible force fields; Johnny Storm is the hotheaded flamethrower; and Ben Grimm is the super strong orange rock monster. Perhaps the best moment here comes in establishing Johnny and Ben's relationship. When Ben is knocked a few blocks away by Foom, Johnny flies over to make sure he's ok. It's only after he finds out that Ben is fine that he has a laugh at his expense. It's this concern balanced with the understanding that they're both going to take the piss out of each other at every opportunity that makes this relationship work and it's great to see that established early on. There's also a lot to be said for Robinson's treatment of Reed and Sue's relationship. Apparently, after the events of Fraction's run their daughter Valeria decided to stay in Latveria for a while as a result of her anger at Reed and Sue for keeping secrets from the family. Sue is conflicted and has a very human discussion with Reed which realistically includes moments of acrimony, concern, sadness, and ultimately love. Watching them then "parent" the Future Foundation only helps to further illustrate their relationship and define this status quo. Following up on that, it's gratifying that Robinson has not jettisoned the kids of the Future Foundation and I hope that they continue to play a part in the proceedings. Additionally, solicitations for future issues seem to reveal that at least Darla Deering, Scott Lang, and She-Hulk will be keeping in touch, which to fans of Fraction's FF is likely an added bonus. And before I leave this train of thought completely, for casual readers it's important to note that Doctor Doom is Valeria's godfather and they share an oddly caring relationship that makes her staying in Latveria plausible and not  an example of horrible parenting on Reed and Sue's part or writing on Robinson's. As for the art, Leonard Kirk does an excellent job here. Apart from one questionable close-up of Franklin Richards which ends up looking really quite odd, I don't have a bad thing to say about his work. The epic moments with Foom are appropriately epic, the tender moments are appropriately tender, and he's captured the likenesses of the characters very well. As far as his page/panel layouts, it all works very well and helps to build a dynamic issue.

It's especially gratifying to see an artist actually use a traditional 9-panel page once in a while when it's called for. It truly is nice to have a comic book look like a comic book once in a while as opposed to incessantly using nontraditional panel structure. Finally, a big question mark for me when a new artist jumps onto Fantastic Four is how he treats Ben Grimm and I have to say that I'm enjoying Kirk's take on his design. It maintains most of the classic elements while giving him his own spin. The Bad: Perhaps the most questionable choice in this issue what happens when Johnny Storm flies to meet his manager. Apparently, Johnny has a singing career now. As a longtime reader this is a slightly questionable choice as it has been previously established that he has tried to act, but singing is a talent I don't think he's ever claimed to possess. This quibble over talent isn't the issue though; the problem is the contract addendum that Johnny signs. Now stay with me here, a member of the Fantastic Four (the team that explores as a second nature, the team that when they need to be written out of an event are simply said to be in another dimension, the team that discovered the Negative Zone, the team that has been to heaven and hell, THAT Fantastic Four) signs a contract addendum that forbids him from taking trips outside of the normal Marvel Universe, specifically the Negative Zone and the Multiverse, and he does so without a second thought or consulting the rest of the team. How does this make any sense? Johnny is supposed to be hotheaded and irresponsible, but he's not stupid. Even ignoring the hundreds of issues that exist showing him developing from an immature teenager to a mature adult, he fairly recently died and was reborn, an experience that one would think would sober him up a bit. Trying to reconcile this action with what I know about the character of Johnny Storm, either he does not intend to abide by this addendum (in which case, he is being dishonest with his manager) or he is ignoring his responsibilities to his teammates and family members (in which case, he is being a jerk to them). As written, this comes across pretty transparently as a plot device to figure into the story in subsequent issues. I would argue though that if this needed to be done, why not have the manager sneak this clause into a larger contract or addendum so that Johnny could be forgiven for signing it? That would establish this plot point without making the character look like a moron.

Now we come to the red costumes. The new costumes are not a bad thing in and of themselves. It would be silly to suggest otherwise. They're pretty well designed and don't veer too far from the established Fantastic Four aesthetic aside from the color change. In fact, the treatment of the chest emblem reminds me slightly of the team's costumes just prior to Marvel's first big relaunch during the Onslaught event and again starting right around issue 12 of their third volume. The thing is that while the Fantastic Four's costumes change pretty regularly, they don't generally change radically without a story-motivated reason. Their biggest change to the black-and-white Future Foundation outfits was motivated by Johnny's death (possibly symbolizing losing him as the life and thus color of the team) and even Sue's mercifully short-lived "stripper" outfit from the '90s originating in Fantastic Four #371 was commented on as something she designed for herself. It might even have been motivated by some shenanigans that were going on at the time regarding her "Malice" persona. The issue here is that the fairly dramatic change to red and black is not commented upon in the comic. It is just accepted by all concerned as something that has happened with nothing in the narrative to justify it, making it just another clichéd comic book costume change. Oddly, while the core team and Franklin Richards, Reed and Sue's son, are now in red and black, the rest of the Future Foundation kids are still in black and white. One can't quite fathom why there is this disconnect and why absolutely no reason or even throwaway line of dialogue is provided to justify the costume change. Perhaps red is more thematically relevant for the Fantastic Four to "fall" in but that hasn't happened yet and the team wouldn't change their costumes to red in response to something that is yet to occur. Frankly, as a reader I don't mind the change, but I would like it to be narratively justified or at least acknowledged. With those out of the way, I suppose the only other major criticism I would have is Robinson and Kirk's use of their page count. There are a total of four pages in this issue which are essentially blank. The first is the recap page which does not get any criticism from me. The second is the page on which we see Sue writing to her children, the book's framing device to set up the beginning of this arc. This page is largely black but done so in order to evoke mood and a sense that something tragic has happened, thus earning no negative criticism from me. However, we are then treated to a two-page spread revealing the title of the arc "The Fall of the Fantastic Four" over nothing but empty black with a little red mist effect at the bottom. Why couldn't the title have been on the recap page and we have used these two pages for plot? Even if we needed this two-page spread for the title, why couldn't there have been some art here? You could have, for instance, used these pages to:

• Show an inspiring image of the Fantastic Four evoking their history and everything they will lose in this fall
• Show an ominous image of the Fantastic Four hinting at the nature of this fall or really solidifying that the we mean business here
• Show something hinting at the reason for the costume change
• Show the Impossible Man making waffles

That being said, there is little in this book that deserves outright negative criticism and that brings me to… The Questionable… Where we talk about things that are neither good nor necessarily bad, but at least are a little head-scratching. This issue does not actually read like a #1. It reads like an issue #0 or #½ to be perfectly honest. I still subscribe to the school that says that if I'm being asked to pay full price for a comic on a monthly basis, then the basic unit of enjoyment for a comic book is the single issue. As such, this single issue serving as little more than prologue is slightly less satisfying than it could be and were it a few pages less could easily have just been part of one of Marvel's Point One preview anthologies.

While I am certainly intrigued for Robinson's "The Fall of the Fantastic Four" arc, Fraction's arc has perhaps left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. While his arc started off promising enough and certain single issues were enjoyable on their own, he was essentially telling one 16-issue story. (Arguably, he was telling a 32-issue story as FF did have some pretty significant ties to the story of the main series, but I digress.) As such, when that story got handed to different writers and artists and the ending turned out to be largely unsatisfying, it made me look back over that 16-issue experience with some disappointment. That in turn made me look back fondly over the first few hundred issues of Fantastic Four where one could pick up an issue or two or three and get a complete story from beginning to end with the exception of a few dangling threads or character arcs. Even a stinker of a story would be over in a few months at most and you would be on to the next thing. I've just got my fingers crossed that fans of the Fantastic Four are being treated to a satisfying ride that will read well both as single issues and in trade paperback. Conclusion: In the end, this issue is worth the price of admission. It does an admirable job of setting up the next arc for the team; establishes the characters and status quo for new readers; has some science, humor, and heart; and there's enough action to give Ben Grimm an excuse to say "It's Clobberin' Time!" James Robinson seems to largely grasp the core of these characters and based on the strength of his best work, I'm finding myself intrigued about the coming journey that the team will be taking. Leonark Kirk's art is great and hits all the right notes. Here's hoping for one fantastic ride.